The beginning of the Vitality Blast has largely been a damp squib but with the rain starting to go away the competition should be able to kick into life on Saturday when five matches are scheduled on a good looking afternoon of cricket.
All three groups are in action over the course of the afternoon on Saturday, where sadly once again we are restricted to the various county live streams to keep abreast of the action. They are much improved though so that isn’t terrible.
North Group
We have two matches in the North Group with the pick of them coming from Grace Road in Leicester where two former winners of this competition battle it out as the Leicestershire Foxes take on a Lancashire Lightning side who were the only team so far to be able to dodge the weather and pick up a victory. Another win here has them in an excellent position. The other match comes from right up at the Riverside as Durham look to bounce back from that loss to Lancashire on Thursday when they take on a dangerous looking Nottinghamshire Outlaws side.
Central Group
All matches in the Central Group have been washed out so far but there is hope that the two scheduled for Saturday can take place and the interest will come at New Road where two former champions meet as Worcestershire host Northamptonshire. The other match in this section comes from Bristol where Gloucestershire and Glamorgan will go at it with the aim of showcasing their credentials for this competition and possibly launch a bid to reach the quarter finals.
South Group
There is only the one match in the South Group but it is automatically a relatively important one as it comes from Lord’s and matches from there always feel important. It sees Middlesex looking to get their first win of the campaign when they host a Kent Spitfires side who would have been spitting feathers to lose out on a victory in their opening match when the rain came down five balls before a result was guaranteed against Hampshire. The winners here will be the early leaders in the South Group.
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Betting
Finally we can get stuck into this tournament and I’m going to do so with three bets. The first of them comes from down in Bristol where I like the performance line of Marchant de Lange at 23.5. I like this line for two reasons. The first is that with all the rain that has been around the seamers are likely to have some fun on Saturday. De Lange has been in decent touch in the Bob Willis Trophy and can be a threat at the right times in this competition. The other reason why I like it is with Glamorgan having an inexperienced batting line up and de Lange having smoked a ton in the Bob Willis Trophy last week, he might get to go up the order as a pinch hitter and steal some points through runs. Ultimately we only need a couple of wickets from him without runs or a catch. That is possible so I’ll go with the over here.
Another over I’ll go with is the total runs in the match between Leicestershire and Lancashire where the 310.5 line looks a touch on the low side given the way Lancashire batted at Durham on Thursday. Grace Road has been a road in recent times and unlike in years gone by Lancashire don’t have an attack that is full of fear at the minute. In fact it is a pretty youthful attack so a perfectly competent Leicestershire batting line up should be able to make hay. Durham don’t have a brilliant batting line up but they scored 163 on a tougher ground to score on than this so I’ve got to think between these two teams that more than 310 runs can be scored.
The other bet I like is for Middlesex to beat Kent. It is a well-trodden path that bowling attacks win these T20 matches and I like the Middlesex one a lot more. Kent went very well in the 24 overs or so that was played against Hampshire but Hampshire were a shell of what they used to be and are capable of. I don’t think Middlesex will bowl as badly as Hampshire did and if their attack fires like it can they could expose Kent’s light batting. This is a Kent batting line up that is without Joe Denly, Sam Billings and Heino Kuhn so outside of Zak Crawley and Daniel Bell-Drummond this is a light looking batting outfit. I’m not convinced Middlesex’s batsmen will fall into too much strife against the Kent attack so I’ll take the home side here.
Tips
DEAD HEAT – Back Middlesex to beat Kent for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with 888sport
Back them here:
WON – Back M.de Lange’s Performance – Over 23.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
VOID – Back Leicestershire vs Lancashire – Over 310.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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